Pompeo: Cancel Snowden at SXSW

Rep. Mike Pompeo doesn’t want Edward Snowden on the schedule at South by Southwest, and he’s taking the event’s planners to task for inviting him in the first place.

In a letter from Pompeo’s office, he requested the NSA leaker’s invitation to speak via telecast at the annual Texas event be withdrawn, lest it encourage “lawless behavior” among attendees.

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“Mr. Snowden’s appearance would stamp the imprimatur of your fine organization on a man who ill deserves such accolades,” the Kansas Republican wrote. “Rewarding Mr. Snowden’s behavior in this way encourages the very lawlessness he exhibited.”

Snowden is set to appear at the Austin festival Monday at 11 a.m. for a discussion about personal privacy and surveillance with American Civil Liberties Union technologist Christopher Soghoian. The conversation will focus on the National Security Agency’s activities, and audience members will have a chance to ask Snowden questions.

Pompeo, who is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote that the inclusion of Snowden in the event’s lineup “undermines the very fairness and freedom that SXSW and the ACLU purport to foster.”

“I strongly urge you to withdraw this invitation,” he wrote.

Pompeo outlined grievances against Snowden, such as caring more about personal fame than the cause he represents, and giving real whistleblowers a bad name. Snowden remains in exile in Russia.

“Certainly an organization of your caliber can attract experts on these topics with knowledge superior to a man who was hired as a systems administrator and whose only apparent qualification is his willingness to steal from his own government and then flee to that beacon of First Amendment freedoms, the Russia of Vladimir Putin,” Pompeo wrote.

In an announcement earlier this month, the event’s interactive director Hugh Forrest wrote that surveillance and online privacy looked to be one of the biggest topics of conversation 2014 festival.

“As organizers, SXSW agrees that a healthy debate with regards to the limits of surveillance is vital to the future of the online ecosystem,” Forrest wrote.